123101-remove-faction-barrier-page-2
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 Content On it's own? None. There's not benefit to having factions or having no factions. The problem you are trying to address is a different issue all together. I for example do not run pugs for dungeons or adventures. Almost nobody in my guild or alliance circle does. When we want to run dungeons and adventures, we always form a group on our using people we know and communicate over Teamspeak. And I know a few other guilds that do exactly the same. Is this part of the problem, why Queue's are not popping? Yes, I think so. Am I going to change this behaviour and use more pugs? No, I'm afraid not. The reason is that I've grown tired or dealing with the trouble that comes from pugs: Nobody talks Everyone does things different People keep disbanding after a wipe In this case I say the problem is not the population (okay it partially is as there's not enough people to pug when we all play like this), but the partially the problem is people themselves. The attitude of other people in pugs is the main reason why I and my guild + alliance do not pug. If we pug, then we really narrow it down to 1 or 2 persons max. So my question to you Eclipse, which topic do you wish to dive deeper into? Addressing the population issues Talk about factions on a theoretical basis, leaving personal oppinions out of it PvP | |} ---- ---- Way to beat around the bush and not answer his question. the whole PUGs issue is completely irrelevant to factions, and the discussion entirely. | |} ---- ---- ---- chua* it's plural or singular by context, no need for the S. As much as I hate Chua, I have to say Gaining the ability to make a Draken alt would more than make up for having to be around those vile creatures. | |} ---- Let's just take this part right here: What are the advantages of having 2 separate factions? You're right. It has no advantages. It has nothing but huge, massive disadvantages. The ONLY thing that can be considered an advantage of a 2 faction system, is open world pvp. This is something that I am firmly of the opinion that it is extremely lackluster in this game. I think world pvp should be done away with in favor of warplots, entirely. (As it currently is, save the population issue) As far as the rest of your post, you really can't just bring up other things to steer away from the conversation at hand. What you've suggested, is that having separate factions takes a backseat to the problem that you perceive to be the culprit, IE the lack of people queueing for pug dungeons. You seem to believe that you, and others who prefer not to pug, are the reason. Well, I don't believe that is the case. I believe that it has been rare that I've personally ever NOT pugged a group, even if that pug was in /EntityLFM , a channel devoted entirely to looking for a group without having to queue into the dungeon finder. You see, separating the factions divides the people in the Exile version of LFM, and the Dominion version. It further divides people that aren't in the same timezone / general playtimes. One of the glaring disadvantages of separate factions, is the lack of people to play with in primetime. Oceanics, EU on NA, etc often want to pug BGs / dungeons outside of PST/EST primetime. Splitting the factions takes away that ability to queue ANYONE who is looking for group. It further encourages all people who want to play in off hours into rolling on a specific faction etc, in order to find groups. IMO, this is a very big problem for wildstar in general, and I think one of the biggest advantages of mixed faction BGs, however far off they are. I think you do not only yourself, or me a tremendous disservice when you attempt to beat around the bush in your answer, but the other posters looking here for clear and concise information. If you agree like you said in your first line, that splitting factions offers no advantages, then you need to simply state that, not look for a bunch of other problems and wrongly attribute them to X or Y reasons, instead. | |} ---- ---- ---- It is however related to the problem at hand as you pointed out Eclipse. There's many reasons why people do not enter the queue system some you listed yourself. So with the low population we have in WildStar, this does affect whether you will get queue's or not. But let's put that discussion on hold for now and focus on the Faction System. You abused my answer to get your way in the discussion. I said "on it's own". When you look at the factions themselves, taken outside the entire game context, then they do not offer any advantage or disadvantege. They are simply a means to drive the story your games revolves around. When applying this to WildStar, this means the Exiles vs the Dominion. You can only have a story like that in your game, if you are divided into factions. You could try the approach Final Fantasy did with having all players represent one faction, and the other faction being completely story driven through NPCs. Nonetheless, you are dealing with 2 factions there to drive the story and conflict. Now when we look back at the entire discussion and involve the rest of the game, there are some things that do not make sense. The first is the bashing on Chua. You want to be all in the same faction, but cannot stand being with certain species of the "old faction". This is an argument as to why we should have factions, to capitalize on the like/dislike of people and the races that can be played. Call it racism if you want. The mere fact that people have a preference to play a specific race and dislike another is something you can use to fuel your conflict in the game and provide people a good story/reason to go at each other. So this speak clearly for having factions. This really depends on to many factors to use as argument. I have around 40'ish people ready to raid in my guild + alliance guild, and I see many more guilds recruiting and raiding on Jabbit. I cannot speak of the NA servers as I've not played there for a while. What I'm trying to say here is, that this is an argument based on personal observence, and we should be careful with using these. The same applies to Player-Driven events. I will grant you that no faction barrier makes it easier for the opposing faction to join such events, but on the other side, it also encourages the opposing faction to create similar events. Again, promoting positive competition between the two to see which faction can hold/organize them better. Collection of Rare items/mounts etc? I assume you are referring here to faction bound mounts etc? I would use it as argument to simply decide on the faction. "Limits the small roleplaying community"? In which way? Our roleplay with the guild revolves against having an enemy faction we need to deal with. There's perhaps guilds that have friends on the other side, but with Addons like translator this language barrier can be overcome and both can still engage in activities together. | |} ---- I'm pretty neutral about the removal of factions, but I just want to point out that most of these things aren't true... For raiding, pvp, instanced events I can agree with you, but for player driven content such as roleplay, world events is down to the players themselves, even if they were together there still would be a lack of public events because they are hard to organise :P As for friendliness, I've had no issues with people being like that. Factions are meant to be like that. Also, the CX and AH are merged cross faction so don't try and use the economy as an excuse ^-^ | |} ---- But that only covers a small portion of the sheer amount of disadvantages a split faction system brings. | |} ---- Sorry but I cannot agree with any of the answer you gave. Whether the dungeon finder is a bad design or not is a different discussion, can we leave it out of this? Otherwise I fear we'll be jumping from topic to topic without talking about the faction thing. I'm not going to addess each single answer you wrote out, but right now it comes across as you do not care about anything us PvE's like in the game and want to throw everything overboard. You're talking about the "majority" not liking this. Can you prove this? Do you have any indication somewhere that people are absolutely opposed to having factions? I also want to invest my 15$ every month in this game, and I'm buying CREDD as well, but I do not want to sacrifice the things I like either. | |} ---- You've listed 1. Roleplay 2. Friendliness 3. Economy Roleplay can be observed different ways like you please, and I addressed this sort of in my last post. When you're pretending something a certain way, none of the barriers etc really matter to you, kind of making the whole thing moot. 2. Friendliness-- I was more implying that having a separate faction encourages an "us or them," attitude. It encourages toxicity, griefing, etc, as a way to put down the opposite faction. Sure, these things occur on the same faction, but are not encouraged in the same way. 3. Cross faction AH/CX doesn't really lend well to the crafter. Having 12% plus being chopped off to the seller isn't really a seller's optimal way of doing things. Nor is rolling on the side with less demand, etc. You lose a lot of time and money using a CX / AH, and you discourage playing with others by using the CX/AH. I remember playing games where crafters sold things in stands, to other players, and contributed to true supply and demand. I would much prefer an environment where people could move to the crafting district and interact with other crafters, rather than hope that X item is on the AH/CX etc. Overall having separate factions is very poor for the economy. | |} ---- ---- And yet no matter what's said or what anyone's opinion is, when you consider it twosides of a debate, Dual factions have far more disadvantages by a long shot than single player pool(non factioned). There's without a doubt far more disadvantages than advantages in a dual faction system, that simply isn't up for debate. | |} ---- The best part about removing the faction barrier, is that it still allows everyone to function as before, but with improvements. The only loss we'd take as a game, would be world pvp, something that is virtually a joke. Removing the rating barriers would let you and your 39 chua friends create a warplot, and be able to take on all challengers, Chua, mordresh, Cassian, Human, Granok, alike. You could even compete with your own Chua tribes to see which Chua tribe was better. Olivar, I don't hate PvE in this game. I hate PvE being a solo experience, long queue times, and poorly designed in an MMO. I hate the idea of someone not being able to queue up and play with people. I hate the idea of oceanics / off peak timers being alienated from aspects of this game like dungeon finding and battlegrounds. I hate the idea faction barriers limiting who I choose as my arena partner, or who I want to raid with. I hate the idea of having spent so much time on a Dominion character, only to find out the best guild that matches my raid times is Exile. I hate the idea of my Exile buddy's best friend quitting the game, and him not being able to play with me or someone else without devoting time to an all new character. ... and further I hate the idea of having to pay 20$ for a faction change, over an arbitrary decision of what my character looks like. | |} ---- That is your opinion ofc, and you're probably correct :P I'm sure someone who is FOR dual factions could come up with more advantages than disadvantages than a single pool of players. Even if logically or even factually it is incorrect. In that case, you provide evidence for this and show the person who is misinformed actual proof of your argument (I'm an empiricist, it's just how I roll :P) That's how a debate works. (So tempted to post that "honey come to bed", "I can't someone is WRONG on the internet" picture but I can't be bothered to find it, pretty much sums up most threads on the internet) As I can't stress enough, I'm completely neutral on this. I just dislike people using anecdotal, blanket terms and voicing personal opinion as fact whilst being condescending to others for a difference in opinion. | |} ---- My opinions are open for discussion, whenever you deem them "not a waste of time." I imagine you won't go into detail because you don;t have a strong enough argument to challenge my opinions here. You say factions aren't nearly as damaging as people are implying they are, which is an opinion, as simple as mine. I'm simply putting reason, evidence, and argument behind my opinions, where you are not. You're right, they are part of Carbine's game, but as you can see, not very many people want to play this game, when you compare it to sales for other games of this genre and flavor. I see that as a problem--- and probably so do the people in charge of making decisions at Carbine. The same argument has been seen in the past "DS40 is Carbine's game, and they don't have to change it just because players don't want to play it or don't like it, this is a niche game." BOOM DS20, more subs than before. Don't live in the past Sylqt. Staying on a dead server doesn't make it any less dead, just like pretending the faction barrier isn't a detriment to the game as a whole. If it wasn't for the design of Wildstar and the engineering time required to change the faction barrier (as stated by CRB DEV), then it would be an easy fix. The best part of this--- is that you're not removing the factions, you're removing the barriers. You still get to quest and follow the story line on the exile / dominion side--- but when it comes to big ticket items like Avatus, Drusera, or the Entity, there is virtually no difference in the factions. You're not "losing anything." You're gaining people to play with in an MMO, and the only thing you're losing is always on open world pvp, something that default off flags in the PvE server already take care of. When I say things like "the majority of people," I say it with the ability to provide evidence. IF you intend to say that I'm wrong, provide evidence to the contrary. Right now you're arguing niche opinions and invalidating my majority opinions by saying things like, "WoW, GW2, FFXIV, SWTOR, none of those count as evidence." etc. | |} ---- ---- ---- Sorry eclipse, but no. The reason we try to call you out on "majority" is because as Sylqt mentioned, this is an opinion or interpretation without anything backing it up. I'm with you with all other arguments you've brought for, in so far that I can put myself in your position and imagine what you're trying to bring across. However the constant use of the "majority says so" is not an argument at all. Even when referring to forum posts, you're dealing with a minority as the biggest part of your player base will just play and never visit the forums. And both of you (Eclipse and Sylqt) took a snap at each other. Let's just leave it at that and focus on the discussion please. | |} ---- ---- You still haven't produced any advantages to having a separate faction system, but that's okay right? Because I said the majority somewhere. You see, here's the difference, and what you're missing. "The majority says so," is not the right way to look at it. The right way to look at it, is whether or not the system accurately functions well for the majority of the playerbase. " I run a niche guild that only sees a small amount of the problems that the faction barrier provides," is a valid, yet minority position. The playerbase doesn't all relate to your points of view, just like it may not relate to mine in regards to PvP. But, I think, here is something that needs to be considered. Wildstar isn't appealing to enough people. There are people out there that will subscribe to Wildstar, because they can functionally pop queues, play with and against the people they want, etc. Newsflash, you don't see people citing "not having 2 separate limiting factions" as a reason for people to leave the game. Further, let me bring another data point to the conversation. Dominion Warhound left, because the faction imbalance, low population of the server, etc, left Dominion Warhound in a state undeserving of 15$ a month. If there were no faction barriers, the server Warhound would still be populated with people that prefer to use the PvP ruleset, because Dominion could supplement their group / raid groups, crafters, pvp groups, etc with members of the opposite faction. So Dominion Warhound left, causing a final exodus of Exile Warhound, resulting in the final nail in the coffin for the server. Removing the faction barrier could have prevented, or at least delayed that much, much longer. | |} ---- Thanks for your contribution to the thread. Sylqt: Doesn't care about the faction barriers, but wanted to tell us anyway. +1 to the neutral data point (even though we all know which side she really does take) PS I don't have anything personal against you, at all. | |} ---- ---- You're assuming. You have no base to even make those arguments on. Luminai is in the same state. And many people left PvP for reasons other then the Queue's and "faction imbalance". You want to me to give an argument as to why people are not opposed to factions in the game? Look at Eve Online, they have three factions and people are actively participating in this game, not asking anywhere to remove the factions. Granted factions can play together as well. Look at World of Warcraft. Running for 10 years with a dual faction system. And will probably run for a bit more. Aion, also faction based.... Secret World, Faction based as well with three factions, but taking PvP out to separate places completely. Meaning it's not a problem You're right. Both our versions are a minority, since we're discussing this out on the forum and so far only a handful of people have actually replied. The rest either doesn't care and is happy they way it is, or they're simply not visiting the forum, which adds to the point: they're happy as is. WildStar is increasing in appeal. The main reason why a lot of people left was not factions, was not queue's not popping, it was broken implementations and missing functionality. By adding these missing things and repairing the many problems we had the game is growing. It's growing slow, and there's still a lot of work to be done to put the game where it's supposed to be. Things I would settle for: Remove the language barrier Allow cross-faction battlegrounds Allow cross-faction arena teams But that's where I draw the line. For PvE I want the factions to remains as they are, since this game is about the conflict between the Exiles and Dominion. Entity is just a minor roadblock in this war. | |} ---- ---- Two way server transfers and/or mixed factions would have saved Luminai, infact it would have made Luminai the more populated server (since it was more populated to begin with). The mass exodus all started due to recruitment issues in 40 man DS, considering guilds on PvP realms had been recruiting from PvP Dominion since release with no way to recruit from PvE Dominion and no way to recruit from PvP Exiles... The moment they opened the one way transfer to PvE we immediately took that opportunity and immediately found dozens of players wanting to join us but weren't able to due to silly server restrictions. After that other guilds slowly started doing the same thing, and Luminai started to feel dead. The reason i say mixed factions would have helped this situation is, because both of the biggest guilds on Luminai at the time wouldn't have had to transfer (Eugenic and Codex), and instead could have helped eachother in DS, which is what they both wanted but couldn't, even today, i eventually rerolled a brand new Medic myself, throwing away one of the most geared stalkers at the time (4700 AP 28% crit pre drop 4) just to join the other side but many others decided to quit instead of going through a new character when they were already fully DS geared. From my personal acquaintances i can name ~110 players (we had it in a spreadsheet idk if i still have access to it since i changed guilds) that quit the game due to population issues and not being able to play with like minded players... Meanwhile we knew the other faction had players that would fit our mentality perfectly and would have made a great merge. As it currently stands in EU, if you are Dominion and want to raid hardcore 7 days during progression in this so called #Hardcore game, tough luck, start over with a new Exile character or just play less than you wish to, forget Region/World First. I believe the same can be said for NA Exiles? all for the sake of roleplaaaaaaay, which doesn't necessarily need factions, as it can be done without factions as has been done in other games as mentioned in this thread. If you are a developer and want to start a new MMORPG in the future, why the heck would you restrict yourself with this faction crap? from the get go, create a story that doesn't require opposite factions.. Learn from other games mistakes. | |} ---- ---- They're not visiting forums does not equal they're happy as is. that is a poor argument, not everybody who is unhappy comes to the forums to complain about it Ultimately it is not up to you so you don't get to draw lines All faction games, including WoW have problems with faction imbalance but at least WoW has a faction change service. Wildstar would only be improved by the removal of an arbitrary faction restriction. Let players have the choice. Their is little to no difference in the questing past the first few zones. you do exactly the same things, you just get the quest from a different NPC. Dominion and exile bases sit literally side by side, NPC's from all the races work together. An Aurin called my draken alt earlier to offer a simcore quest .. so much for the war effort, the opposite faction even has my numver. The war would not have to stop just because players can choose to group with the other faction, Stories like the rivalry between Artemis and Dorian don't need to change. No NPC's need to be harmed in the making of this change other players choosing to group with the opposite faction doesn't have to effect you. if you don't want to, then don't but why stop other players from having the choice. Is that the best you could do? | |} ---- ---- I like this idea :) | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- I think unlikely change in the near future is a better way to put it. As to whether or not the faction system gets changed in the long term, that's not as clear cut. There are benefits to at least removing it mechanically. I think it will be kept in contextually in the lore if they come up with a more flexible system mechanically; they'll just work around it with talk of mercenaries and shifting allegiances. After all, Exile or Cassian, humans are humans. Also, while there's no indication that the factions hate each other less, we do still have examples of member races working together, so it's not as cut-and-dry as the mechanical system would have you believe even in their own lore. However, otherwise true throughout. It's certainly not coming in the short term and it's unlikely to be entirely erased. I think most people don't put that at the top of their list of priorities. Unlike things like server divides, factions share a CX. | |} ---- ---- ---- While that was the story at the beginning, it's very much not so anymore. There are far bigger fish to fry. As a roleplayer who definitely values a game's story, I have zero issue with jumping into instanced content with the opposing faction to down some bad guys. We already do it all the time in the open world when teaming up to save Drusera's tree or the Lightspire or whathaveyou. And it would be nice to actually be able to get groups out of the dungeon queue for once. | |} ---- I wanna nuance this a bit, but please, don't read this as a shut-down of your opinion. I just want to point out a few things, from my view... Conflict is not always "us vs. them". There are frequently people on both sides of a divide who will cross the clearly drawn lines, for various purposes: some could be profiteers, some traitors, others are more concerned with protecting lives or protecting culture (this is actually what the housing plot I'm creating is somewhat based on). But basically, there are subgroups, and these subgroups can (and obviously imo, should) be able to cooperate with the opposing faction's subgroups. It just makes more realistic conflict, and again imo more interesting gameplay. So when you write "we are not friends", it's close to what the propaganda machines from both sides WANT us to think: that there is any coherent "We" in the first place. There isn't. You might hate the Chua for what they did to your homeland, but some Mordesh scientist might (secretly or openly) admire them for its scientific achievement. The main point here is that the totalizing "we" makes this conflict seem much simpler and more barbaric than it actually is. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that those of us asking for the removal of barriers aren't all out to make this into a peace offering. I'd personally prefer to see the conflict continue; but I also want to see subversion, independent thinking, and evidence that the factions in this game aren't simplistic, plastic hate machines solely intent on sending one another straight to hell. And can I just point out... if this WAS the case, if it was completely "us vs. them"... where exactly is that kind of plot intended to go? Infinite war? One side wins? Which one? You see, with rigid, binary, faction-based conflict we don't have a lot of flexibility for interesting plot turns or any kind of resolution that isn't one-sided. | |} ---- ---- ---- As someone who got incredibly sick of all the times Heroes & Villains needed to team up for "The Greater Good" in City of Heroes: No. God no. Please, Eldan no. Screw that, no. I just want ONE game... ONE SINGLE game that doesn't do a "greater good" faction-work-together storyline. Clear-cut factions are nice, and play well with knowing your enemy. | |} ---- Well, the exile were pretty much on the run from the dominion and are making a stand now on Nexus. As far as I read the story presented in game, like the siege of Thayd and the large attack on Tempest Refuge, it still seems like the dominion is pushing hard. Maybe the exiles would be amenable to a peace treaty. The problem is then the large conflicts mentioned above run counter that narrative. | |} ---- You find me one Granok/Aurin who'd agree to a peace treaty with the Dominion. Mordesh I bet could be swayed because their downfall was their own doing, but after the casting out from Gnox and the waste of Arboria, I think those dissenting voices would be enough to keep it from happening. | |} ---- So assume for a minute that I, like the majority of players, do not engage in PVP. Who's my enemy? | |} ---- Dominion NPCs, things with red names, and the obvious pointing-of-fingers in the game's Lore. I think that rebuttal is pushing the limit just a little, Esper. | |} ---- OK so, in the time I play Wildstar, I barely ever fight Exile reds, NPCS or PC. That's my point. :P I play for housing, shiphands, adventures, and the odd dungeon. Generally speaking these have nothing to do with the faction-based conflict. I'm pretty sure raids also have nothing to do with the factions being opposed. So again, for non-PVP players, the majority of their game time, combat or otherwise, is spent doing something that has little-to-nothing to do with the ongoing war. You could argue that the war is our plot, our justification for being here, but then I'd counter that with... no, not for my character. Free will is greater than lore! ;) And editing just to clarify my main point: I don't need binary factions to know my enemy (though I do understand that it helps for some players). My enemy is shifting and contextual, and frequently is not decided by the lore-masters who puppeteer the war plot, but by my current character and myself, the player! | |} ---- Just one? I can get you a bunch. Sylphia Barkberry, and all the other C.O.G.S. that call me up. Now will the larger Dominion and Exiles ever have peace? I doubt it, but that does not stop the player from doing missions for neutral parties. I'm not for forcing people who don't want cross faction parties to be in them, I'm just saying there should be an option for the people that do. | |} ---- Or us from being neutral parties. Honestly, the only reason the Blazing Saddles ARE a part of FCON is because I needed to incorporate the faction in. Seeger has to dock in Thayd and work through FCON; he's not going to saw off the branch of the tree he's sitting on. But if we ever could go positively neutral, Seeger's got no problem killing anything that isn't wearing their holomark. | |} ---- Exactly | |} ---- Housing being faction divided really makes my heart hurt. ;.; SO MANY missed RP opportunities ugh. | |} ---- Did you not see my previous posts? Yes that's mordesh, Chua, Aurin, and Cassians Humans and mechari in a single faction. | |} ---- Time heals all wounds. | |} ---- Time didn't bring Alderaan back. >_> | |} ---- ---- ---- Entity and the strain anyone? | |} ---- ---- That was rather touching. | |} ---- Helping each other on the battle field. Afterwords they celebate a victory together or console each other after a defeat. A solitary moment is shared and they catch each other in a vulnerable state. A simple touch leads to a bared heart, left exposed. A feeling swells within them that was always there but never dared to be acknowledged, and before they can stop it they fall into each othes arms. The image fades to black. Looking down on Olivar and FranBunnyFFXII, in bed, spooning after a night of heated passion, 'Tell me what your thinking...er..for science of course.' | |} ---- No, just.....no | |} ---- What the *cupcake*? edit: inb4 some fanfict writer turns this into an Aurinxchua Rule 34. ...dear god why | |} ---- Fan fiction? 'Fifty Shades of Chua'? And trust me there are already rule 34 pictures of Kit Brinny. ....I mean from what I've heard, from a friend, this guy I know,...yeah.' | |} ---- Oh i totally was aware of the kit rule 34, lol. TBH... I would totally commision ecchi pics of my Aurin from some of the artists on Pixiv, if I had the money. I mean could you blame me? My Aurin's totally gorgeous. | |} ---- Picture 'Fifty Shared of Chua' insert Olivars image facing away from the camera, as he overlooks the sky line of Illium. The words 'Mr Olivar will see you now.' over his head. Of course he'd be only half as tall. | |} ---- ---- Life rarely goes as planned, get used to it. Honestly it turned out to be freaking hilarious, especially seeing olivar wig out. Anyways. In reality, I wouldn't mind playing with Chua players, i don't care what the lore says in reality I just want the game to survive and maintain, keep its theme, retcon a few things and "wildstar hits record number subscribers!" I can dream right? Well part of that dream is bringing down the faction wall so the game can be altered into a playable system that works on a small scale. | |} ---- I can't see the dominion, pushing the exile, winning to turn around say "here we changed out minds" they are stubborn, proud and fierce. My type of faction. I can't see them just saying "lol team fire was turned on, sorry guys <3" | |} ---- "So what do you say, 'Deadeye?' Bury the hatchet and all that?" Malvolio offers a hand to the grim gunslinger. "I say you 'n your ilk can go crawl up the backside of a girrok and die there, fer all I care," Brightland replies flatly. | |} ---- Avara speaks up at the end of Brightland's retort, "Either we stand divided and we fall, or we choose to lay our differences aside, stand united to succeed in survival." "The strain cannot be reasoned with," Drusera follows with concern, "it must be stopped. You can be reasoned with, both sides have those with comparison and empathy, You are my only hope to succeed." At this Queen Myala steps forward, "Please listen to her, while I can never forgive the Chua for what they did to Arboria, if we all die, how can we ever go back and save our world or our homes we've all worked so hard to build here?" *** Cmon pappy, do it. | |} ---- You'd literally have to delete Wildstar and remake its lore and voiceovers and cutscenes and questlines and EVERY SINGLE THING from the ground up to make the Dommies and Exiles get along. Absolutely terrible idea, to put it bluntly. Even if they DIDN'T do any of this and just left the quests and lore the same but made Dominion and Exile players friends, it would STILL take an incredibly high amount of programming work I'm sure. More than it's worth. Your idea is probably the best way to KILL Wildstar, not save it. Gosh I just don't get it. How is it that so many people inexplicably think that programming is super easy and the Devs can just "herp derp flip a switch" and suddenly everything is fixed? Bug? Oh, just hit the fix bug button. Wanna change the factions? Lol, just pull the "make the factions friends again" lever. In addition, I don't know what Wildstar you're playing, but I play with people every time I log on. | |} ---- As many people have already mentioned... COGS... | |} ---- Ok, so remake EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE GAME except for the C.o.G.s. Lol k. I'm sure that's a great use of the Developer's time that could be spent fixing bugs, balancing the game and making more content. Maybe it'll be done by 2017. | |} ---- ---- That takes roughly the same level of work and testing as re-writing current game lore. Sorry, but your argument of "just add more" is no different than "just change what's there." (MAYBE an exception on VO, but that's a finicky department given unions.) Edited March 5, 2015 by BusterCasey | |} ---- Every single thing in the game... Uhm, what? Nothing would have to be changed at all. 99% of the time, Dominion and Exiles are working right alongside each other already. | |} ---- Do you even pay attention do my posts or do I have to post my CoGS screenshots AGAIN. How do I know about game developement? Because I've helped IMPORT an MMO from korea(Prius Online) and I played tech support help with the assistant producer of Prius Online as well. We both came from Flyff(old game yeah) where we worked on optimization and technical issues with the game. I've a general idea of how these games are supposed to work internally. They would have to change a few things, but nothing serious. A small retcon of lore post level 45 in grimvault, and Done. Grimvault is where the strain comes into full force, this can easily be the catalyst after the drusera instances to throw people into the "Kay there's no more factions anymore" lore revamp. and from then on out, factions don't exist except for your NPCs and reputations, ect. It's really that simple. | |} ---- ---- You're joking right? | |} ---- Now, I know you've had the same views as I have on game dev... and I do hope you're only calling it simple from a Lore perspective. If Carbine works on Agile/Rally/Scrum like ArenaNet does, then the amount of time it'd take to actually DO these things is well above 6-8 months. | |} ---- ---- No...you dont... You either havent played many other games, or you have played a lot of games but didnt pay attention to the quest chains, or you arent being creative enough. You know that Star Trek Online and SWTOR quests actually move along on a timeline spanning months and years? For example, as a Federation character in STO you start out in Chapter 1 where you graduate from the Academy and on your first training cruise you are attacked by Klingons and they kill your Captain and you get JJ-Abramsed from cadet to command of your own light frigate. Later in the game, i think Chapter 9 many months (or years) have passed, IIRC the episodes in game display year stamps. By this Chapter the Feds and Klingons have made peace. Wanna know how they did it? A combined task force of Romulans, Klingons and Fed ships first defend Earth against and enemy armada in a "last stand" type fight. Then once that is done everybody goes to the Klingon homeworld to fight another armada, only this time they have a planet killer ship with them (you get one guess as to what the ship is able to do). As the planet killer is charging up its death beam aimed at the Klingon homeworld one of the Fed ships evacuates all crew except the Captain and he flies the ship right into the planet killer and destroys it. The captain gets beamed off at the last minute by your ship since you are flying as his wingman or whatever. But that is how they did it...Klingons all of the sudden went from battle hardened-hate all feds-to "I....I....cant believe he saved out lives....". Anyways thats how STO has a timeline in its quest lines and thats how they resolved the war. SWTOR has a timeline too...when you go from Chapter 1 to 2 i believe 3 months have passed? if you are playing the most current content i believe 10 years have passed since that time you were a level 1. Dont quote me on that though cause i stopped playing the first expac, and they are on the 3rd or 4th now i think. I had suggested in a few other that the hostilities between Dom and Exile could be explained away a few ways. An easy one? when they add drop 69 or the first expac, it is revealed that Drusera is getting angry with the way the fighting between Dom and Exile is destroying parts of Nexus. Doms bust out with some nukes, Exiles retaliate with nukes of their own. Druseras eyelid starts to get all twitchy and they she tells both factions that if they do not "behave" she will blow up the entire planet. Or you can do it the same way STO did and just have everybody start rescuing each other from some huge threat. Aurin contract a disease with a longish incubation time that spreads to all of them and they are cured by Mondo (who was actually trying to extract the disease to secretly weaponize it. The Aurin are confused and grateful, the Emperor sees this and tells Mondo to stop being so Mondo. The player is running through a jungle and they spot Artemis, the Draken General, Kit, Durek and mixed Dom and Exile soldiers running from 1-2 Annihilator droids. They hole up in a bunker--plan comes into place to destroy droids (which you end up doing)--droids are dead, tense standoff ensues--Exiles say they just want a place to live, Dom say they are just trying to trace their heritage (Toria). I mean we *could* try to come up with something remotely plausible that would explain away the end of hostilities. Or we can keep doing what we are doing and just go uhhh buuu deeee uhhhh buuuu deee uhhhh buuu deeee like a bunch of stuttering idiots and say "but the lore! but the lore!" | |} ---- ---- Careful what you wish for...*gets out pencils* | |} ---- Simple in process, but yeah will probably be fairly time consuming. That's why they need to be working on it NOW. | |} ---- Oh lord. XD | |} ---- ---- But some lore dictates them working together for the bigger baddie out there. | |} ---- Those two ideas aren't mutually exclusive. I think this discussion is in perpetual tension because it keeps boiling down to the factions either declaring a ceasefire or we can't mechanically cross the faction line. We'd be better off fighting for the right to go freelance. | |} ---- This ^^ | |} ---- Is there some sort of storywriting rule that i'm unaware of that says once enemies always enemies? Stories change and so can lore. That doesnt mean i think they should go back and retcon WS lore, because that would just be doing lots of work and wasting work that was already previously done. They can keep current lore intact the way it is, and anything that gets added to it can be about whatever they want. Pick any TV show, movie or novel where two people or groups who were enemies suddenly in an episode/chapter ended up becoming good friends or allies. Did the people who write the books/movies/shows go back and re-write previous shows when that happened? or did they let the hostile stance between those two groups prevent them from writing in a 'we are at peace now' episode/chapter/movie? | |} ---- ---- ---- "B-but Arboria!!" If it was up to those people Germany, Japan, China, Britain, and the US would still not be talking with each other and would still be big enemies. Because after Nanking, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Dresden and London they can never become allies, ever. And once again, you can just do it like Rift. Keep the Lore and the Instances separate, so you don't have to change the lore but can still play together in instances (maybe with an opt-out mechanic). That way enemies can stay enemies forever and ever in the future lore, and you can still have short queues and a less dead game in the future. But this has all been said time and time again, and this whole topic is probably exhausted and I doubt Carbine will ever make this change anyway. They were too late with changing the PvP server transfers, and they'll probably be too late with making this change as well, if they're ever gonna make the change in the first place. | |} ---- I really cannot stress enough the slippery slope that is The Greater Good trope. I want my factions at war. Clear cut sides are a boon. When CoH delved into co-op content, literally every story was "for the greater good." 6+ issues of "for the greater good." Want your villain to be a villain? Sorry, it's "for the greater good." Making both factions a muted gray and tossing out the reason for their original black/white ways is a good way to dump on the lore and stagnate the story. The only way this wouldn't homogenize the factions is if each one was fighting the "big bad" for different reasons, not to work together. Dominion wants to harvest Strain to make a virus that only affects those without Highborn blood; Exiles want to eliminate the Strain entirely. I don't want to play a faction-divided game only to have the factions mean nothing at level 45+. | |} ---- And in WotW, SoTR and the lvl 15 Adventures, all of the NPC enemies are of the opposite faction. Cross-faction grouping and guilds (like Rift) isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I think any faction-specific content should be kept faction-locked. That is, there's probably no problem with making Dungeons, Shiphands, Raids and quests from neutral hubs doable together cross-faction (as far as ease of change and lore goes), but Adventures, faction territory quests and faction-based PVP should remain faction-locked. | |} ---- Your whole argument falls apart when it's this obvious that you haven't even looked at any of the Lore from the Dominion's POV and just ignore the fact that the factions are already mostly shades of grey instead of black/white. A thing which becomes even more obvious when looking at your hilarious example of the dominion ever wanting to commit genocide on their own people, directly contradicting multiple storylines in the game (most notably in Auroria). Also you not knowing that the factions currently already don't mean anything at level 35+, and both factions tell pretty much the exact same story from that point onwards where they constantly work together and have bases right next to eachother without ever firing a shot. | |} ---- During questing you actually see some draken and chua hanging out with the exiles ;) Every war has people that defect so in that sense I wouldn't mind doing a dungeon with them. I wouldn't mind seeing some players that actually change faction but they should be a minority, maybe they can do it for a few dollars? | |} ----